Interstellar Lab

Recognized under Tier 6 — Food Systems, Interstellar Lab is a France-based company developing BioPod and BioCapsule closed-loop environments that combine automated climate, lighting, and fertigation control to grow crops, insects, and other food sources independent of ambient conditions. Its NuCLEUS food-production system won the $750,000 grand prize in NASA and the Canadian Space Agency's Deep Space Food Challenge by demonstrating autonomous cultivation of microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms, and insects for astronaut diets. A spin-off of that system, the Eden 1.0 plant-growth chamber, is under contract to fly aboard Vast's Haven-1 commercial space station. The company has raised early-stage venture funding to scale BioPod manufacturing. Interstellar Lab's work targets the resource-recycling core of long-duration food production: growing calories in a sealed loop, with minimal water and energy input, is a prerequisite for feeding crews on Mars transit and after arrival.